CDS (II) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 54 of 120

Correct — A, Uttar Pradesh. The Gupta temple called Deogarh stands in Deogarh village in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh, in the Betwa valley some 125 km from Jhansi, on the edge of the Bundelkhand country. It is usually known as the Dashavatara temple, and it is dated to around 500 CE, at the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century. Its importance is architectural as much as sculptural: it is one of the earliest surviving Hindu stone temples of north India, the earliest known example there of the panchayatana plan in which four subsidiary shrines stand at the corners of a platform around the main shrine, and one of the first north Indian temples to carry a shikhara over the sanctum. Its relief panels — Vishnu reclining on Ananta, the rescue of the elephant Gajendra, and Nara and Narayana — are the standard illustrations of Gupta sculpture in every syllabus.

• (b)Madhya Pradesh — The most tempting wrong answer, because Deogarh sits close to the Madhya Pradesh border in the Bundelkhand region and because Madhya Pradesh holds other famous Gupta-period temples such as the one at Sanchi and the Udayagiri caves near Vidisha. The village itself is in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh.
• (c)Chhattisgarh — Chhattisgarh has early temples of its own, such as the Lakshmana temple at Sirpur, but they belong to later centuries and to a different building tradition. Deogarh is not there.
• (d)Rajasthan — Rajasthan has a Deogarh of its own, in Rajsamand district, known for a palace and for a school of miniature painting. That coincidence of names is what makes this option worth including, but the Gupta temple is not that Deogarh.

The Gupta period is where the free-standing Hindu stone temple begins to take recognisable shape. The sequence usually taught runs from flat-roofed shrines on a low plinth, through shrines with a small tower, to temples on a raised platform with a proper shikhara and a covered ambulatory. Deogarh belongs to the later end of that development, and its panchayatana layout, tall doorway with river goddesses on the jambs, and large narrative panels on three outer walls make it the standard example.

Place names repeat across states in India, and examiners use that. There is a Deogarh in Rajasthan and a Deoghar in Jharkhand; the Gupta temple is in neither. The reliable anchor is the district — Lalitpur, in the far south of Uttar Pradesh, a salient of the state pushing into Bundelkhand — which is why so many candidates place the temple in Madhya Pradesh by feel. If the district name is hard to hold, the Betwa river is another anchor: the temple stands above the Betwa, and the Betwa flows out of Madhya Pradesh through this corner of Uttar Pradesh on its way to the Yamuna.

• The Dashavatara temple is at Deogarh village, Lalitpur district, Uttar Pradesh, in the Betwa valley about 125 km from Jhansi.
• It is dated to about 500 CE — late fifth to early sixth century, in the Gupta period.
• It is the earliest known panchayatana temple in north India and among the earliest there to carry a shikhara.
• Its best-known reliefs are Anantasayana Vishnu, Gajendra-moksha and Nara-Narayana; several recovered panels are now in the National Museum, Delhi.
• Other Gupta-period temples commonly cited alongside it are the flat-roofed shrine at Sanchi and the Vishnu temple at Tigawa.

• Sliding the temple across the border into Madhya Pradesh because it lies in the Bundelkhand region.
• Confusing Deogarh in Lalitpur with Deogarh in Rajsamand, Rajasthan, or with Deoghar in Jharkhand.
• Treating the name Dashavatara as a promise that all ten incarnations are carved there — the surviving panels are a small selection.

As a site-to-state question, as a dynasty-to-site matching row, or as an architecture question on the first appearance of the shikhara and the panchayatana plan.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Dashavatara temple at Deogarh is best known as the earliest north Indian example of which temple plan?

  • (a)Panchayatana
  • (b)Sandhara
  • (c)Vesara
  • (d)Gopuram-fronted enclosure

  Answer(a) Panchayatana — a main shrine on a platform with four subsidiary shrines at the corners.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The relief panel showing Vishnu reclining on the serpent Ananta is found on the walls of which Gupta-period temple?

  • (a)The temple at Deogarh
  • (b)The Kailasanatha temple at Kanchipuram
  • (c)The Lakshmana temple at Sirpur
  • (d)The Durga temple at Aihole

  Answer(a) The temple at Deogarh — its Anantasayana panel is one of the best-known works of Gupta sculpture.